


Counting the Ways to Where You are

by karrenia_rune



Category: 100 Years - Five for Fighting (Song)
Genre: Gen, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:14:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24042667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: A follow-up piece to "Be and Be not Afraid."  It is not necessary to have read that first before this one. It small expansion on what Sammantha's life with her deceased husband and a little side-trip down memory lane when she rediscovers a  poem she had saved in the box of her treasured keepsakes.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Counting the Ways to Where You are

"Counting the Ways to Where You Are"

Samantha set aside her knitting needles and went over to the glass-fronted cabinet that she kept her collection of keepsakes. 

The visit from her daughter had made feel a bit nostalgic and she wanted to dig out the old silver and turquoise box that her old friend Betty Jane had given to her on her 60th birthday on one of their many trips to the American Southwest.

She opened the case and ran her eye over the china and the other collectibles, and then removed the box. Taking it back over to her favorite chair, she the box on the table, running her hands over the slides and planes of it. 

She mentally chided herself, just open it already."

Inside the box were are all of the letters that her husband, Marcus had written to her while he'd been off fighting in the Vietnam War. 

Samantha, even now, when the threshold of the decision had been reached was she really ready to unwrap the past. They had met in college, and he had been so surprised and encouraging when she had told him that she was the first woman in her family to go to college.  
even the sea is high

Chasing the years of my life, going so far to support in her burgeoning journalism career after they had graduated.  
Half time goes by  
Suddenly you're wise  
Another blink of an eye  
67 is gone  
The sun is getting high

We're moving on... Then the world was plunged into another international crisis, and Marcus had gone off to war.

Yes, she had told her daughter, Sally, a little bit about the father that had never had a chance to get to know his granddaughter. But that was only a tiny snapshot of the man she had loved and married.

She selected one letter at random. It was a poem written in her husband's loopy messy handwriting. He had called "When the Sun slinks off Road and puts up a notice."

_"In the breathless hush of the twilight and ever souls is hunkered down to sleep I often fancy that I am all alone in this endless expanse, one solitary flickering flame of a candle in the dark._

_Yet, even with the wind soughing outside and the cicadas tuning up for their nightly chorus, I can still feel everything around me, hear everything around. And one would think that would make me feel lonely, but it does not._

_When this feeling comes over me, it used to scare me. But I've come to understand, that I'm not alone. Even when we're far apart, like we are now, my beloved Sammantha, I remember that I will come home to you, and time will not destroy the love that we have for each other. After all, I'm counting the ways I will come home to you."_

She can't quite remember if she wanted to read the other letters nestled in the box, but somehow, unerringly a subconscious force had led her to pick this poem.  
Samantha felt moisture come into the corners of her eyes. as she held the sheet of crisp white paper in her hands. "Love you, too, my only love." 


End file.
